By Paul Tulenko
Scripps Howard News Service
Are you a young professional looking for a place to settle down and call home? Maybe you went off to college to get the knowledge and grounding for a job that has been calling to you.
Maybe you and your potential mate are looking for a place where you can not just get a great job, but can satisfy that burning passion for hunting, fishing, camping, skiing or some other excitement that calls.
Maybe you’re looking for a place where you can rent a loft apartment over an old storefront and sell your art, live downtown where the action is and still make a wonderful living.
Maybe you miss the closeness of having friends who like the things you like, and where you are now just doesn’t offer those moments.
Then again, maybe you’ve been out there for a few (or quite a few) years, and you’re still looking for a place where you can be “you” again. You have skills, knowledge and experience, and you don’t seem to have lost that drive, but at the same time, you don’t want to tie yourself down to some corporate job at the expense of friends, family and what’s left of your life.
Does any of this resonate with you? It resonates with me. Over the past few years, I’ve been privileged to talk with a lot of people just like you (and me), and I’ve discovered the secret place where we’ve all longed to be: It’s called home!
For example, I recently visited two very small towns in North Dakota – Bismarck, the capital, and Grand Forks, a town so much like the sleepy town in mid-Missouri I grew up in that I almost pitched the career and all that stuff on the chance that I could again be near friends and relatives who talked like me, who came from that good rich old-country stock, people who believe in people, people who have a positive outlook on life, go fishing for walleyes, hunt Ring-Neck Pheasants, plant a garden, build make-believe cities with grandkids on the muddy banks of the Missouri river, have a beer down at the local watering hole, and cuss and discuss the challenges of the day with friends both old and new.
Have you thought about something like this? A lot of the new people in North Dakota have, and I’ve talked with them, had meaningful discussions across a table groaning with a platter piled high with walleye fillets that just makes your mouth water and piles of steaks that are the tenderest meat ever served, and it’s all home-grown.
These people have moved back home, bought the old place down the road, built the home of their dreams, enrolled their kids in schools that seem to hold promise of actually helping them to succeed in life, found a job with one of the new firms just starting to grow, or in some cases, starting new businesses of their own.
They’ve also found that there is money in their hometown – money to lend to entrepreneurs who want to buy out some business and make it their own or to buy that homestead that will allow them the freedom to be themselves, provide the challenges of the new century and allow them to work with other talented people to open new doors.
If you are looking for a new challenge in your life, consider making a trip back to where you came from, whether it’s that big city, sleepy village or a town in North Dakota. Is there a challenge out there you could solve? Are any of your old friends or family still around? Maybe you and they could walk back up that memory hill one more time. Maybe that bend in the road is the one you’ve been looking for.
Thomas Wolfe said you can’t go home again, but Dorothy did – and I’m going to tell you that, yes, you also can go home again. So come on home. They’re waiting for you.
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